Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday October 14, 2012 @06:13PM
from the show-me-the-gadgets dept.

MrSeb writes "Felix Baumgartner has successfully completed his stratospheric skydive from 128,000 feet (39km), breaking a record that was set 52 years ago by Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger — that much we know. From the balloon, to the capsule, to the gear that Baumgartner wore during his 730 mph (1174 kph) free fall, the technology behind the scenes is impressive, and in some cases bleeding edge. ExtremeTech takes a deep dive into the tech that kept Baumgartner alive during the three-hour ascent and (much shorter) descent — and the tech that allowed us to watch every moment of the Red Bull Stratos mission live, as captured by no less than 15 digital cameras and numerous other scientific instruments."

With all the tech and engineers that were mobilized, was it that difficult to prevent FB to spin during the free fall? According to the various documentaries released before the fall, the spin was the problem to be addressed (and that's the reason why he actually opened the parachute earlier - as he started to spin quickly).

Did you read abou this on Fox News by any chance? You obviously didn't watch the actual footage.

Felix stabilised the spin manually WELL before deploying his parachute.

They had a drogue chute ready to help stabilise the spin if it was required but he didn't use it because it could have prevented him from reaching Mach speed.

If he HAD deployed his main parachute while in an uncontrollable spin it is VERY UNLIKELY that it would have deployed properly, much more likely he would have remained in a spin, not so fast but with his body mass further away from the centre of rotation and hence still massive G forces.

Yes, it was. At those altitudes, the only thing to prevent spins would be a gas reaction system like satellites use. Aka, vent gas out of pressurized bottles to counter-act unwanted spin. Having those on his suit would have added a ton of weight, and precluded him wanting to do this in just a pressure suit. There's no air or anything to allow him to do it himself. That's why when he jumped, he tried to be as still as possible. Even while spinning, the idea was not to move or react. Just wait until you hit enough atmosphere that you can move your body to stabilize yourself with the drag. When he started tumbling, I was screaming for him to hit the atmosphere and be able to stabilize himself. Then he did, and once that happened I knew that he had it nailed.

There's still some air up there - otherwise the balloon wouldn't be able to get there. There's not enough for a person to self-stabilize, but he had a chute that was set to go off automatically if he spun fast enough to be dangerous that would have been enough to stabilize him.

When explaining his motives for joining Red Bull, Joe Kittinger explained that since 1960 he had been getting at least 1 phone call a month from some skydiver who wanted to beat his record and was asking for advice but when he explained to them the logistical challenges they faced they would quickly back off.

This only the second article today and you are already complaining? I would expect one more article summarizing the press conference. And one or two dupes in the next slow news day. If you were expecting any different, you must be new here.

To be fair, they point to different articles which happen to be on the same subject. The first was all about the jump and links so we could watch it, the second is all about the tech behind the jump. Personally I liked both posts. But if I hadn't liked the second post it would only have taken up a few seconds of my day to figure it out.

A third record would be the maximum distance of ascent with a human-occupied balloon, which may exceed the 39045m of exit altitude, as the balloon appeared to descend somewhat before Baumgartner exited. Actually, if the telemetry information displayed on the feed can be trusted then he reached at least 39068m (128177 ft) at the time that he was first sticking his feet out into the open.

Well it's not physically challenging or technically challenging for the person to get in or out of the balloon. It's more a mental challenge to psych yourself up to it. Also the space suit and capsule you can do it in are technically challenging but really it can be done with rather old tech.

Also the space suit and capsule you can do it in are technically challenging but really it can be done with rather old tech.

Technically, he's not the first to do a supersonic jump. An earlier recorded event had a test pilot and his specialist violently ejected from their SR-71 when it broke up at Mach 3+ [roadrunner...ionale.com].

Of course, it wasn't too high up (only 70k ft) but it was supersonic (just horizontally, instead of vertically). I would be surprised if a lot of what was learned came from that event.

He was not the first to parachute faster [jalopnik.com] than the speed of sound. He was the first to do so voluntarily. Of the first two people to do this, one of them died in the air. Not an easy feat.

Baumgartner achieved speed of sound 'autonomously' without first sitting in a high-speed jet but by freefalling. All other examples are of pilots ejecting from a high-speed airplane, going over Mach using an engine. So while what you say is correct, I would rather emphasize the "freefall" versus "engine-powered" part:)

...Captain Charles Yeager became the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound in his X-1 aircraft. Daredevil Felix Baumgartner just became the first man to accomplish the same feat without a plane — or indeed any assistance at all.

What about gravity?

Gravity doesn't really exist. It's actually Intelligent Pushing, where an external all-powerful creator stretches his invisible arm out to make sure that nobody floats off the Earth, or falls off its edge.

The recording of this event, while impressive, missed one crucial bit of technology: a humidity meter.Now we'll never know if he was the first to make this jump without wetting his pants in the process.

"Similar to Cameron’s sub, the capsule features a pressure sphere, although a six foot one made out of fiberglass and epoxy instead of the four foot version made from metal that Cameron needed."
He also compares the pressurized capsule to James Cameron's sub, as if their designs are similar in the slightest. Designing for a vacuum is a hell of a lot easier than designing for the bottom of the ocean. What's with all the scientific reporters not having the slightest clue about their subject matter?

Actually if you see the video, they talked specifically about the balloon capacity (you can also visually see the spare balloon capacity (as a side note, it was fun to see the balloon keep expanding slowly occupying spare capacity, if you get a chance you should really watch the complete video)). The balloon could have expanded much more. The commentary specifically talks about not going higher than 128K for the safety of the jump. I assume they had a range for him, in which he could jump, and 128K was the

For a balloon in air, the lifting power of hydrogen is only about 8.6% more than that of helium. Buoyancy depends on the difference in density between the gases inside and outside. The sea-level densities are:

Air 1.2 kg/m^3Hydrogen 0.0899 kg/m^3Helium 0.178 kg/m^3

So the density differences are 1.11 and 1.022 respectively.

To put it in more concrete terms: If the lifting power of a gas were inversely proportional to its density, a vacuum bottle would lift infinite weight.

Now, as the balloon gained altitude, that percentage difference would've increased until the surrounding atmosphere has the same density as helium, at which point hydrogen would give an extra boost. But by that point the amount of lift itself will have drastically diminished (though the expansion of the balloon compensates for some of that, yes?) so you're chasing smal

When Joe Kittinger jumped for Excelsior in the '50s and '60s, he was testing the feasibilty high-altitude escape systems. He succeeded, and in the process, set some very impressive and rather durable records. Stratos was a not-very-subtle ad-funded stunt show. There's real science being done but I have little doubt that it's ultimately in service to the sponsor (also Austrian).

Whether or not Red Bull spent two years and who knows how much, why isn't this still one of the coolest things to happen in some time? Watching him stand there with the curvature of Earth below him is one of those things that makes me jealous. And there are some things being tested - newer versions of the high-alt suits and maybe more.

However, I'm a little annoyed about people thinking that now astronauts and such can use suits like Felix's to escape bad situations in space. Felix jumped more or less straight down with almost no lateral velocity. Someone BASE-jumping from ISS may pull some staggering free-fall numbers (greater height for 9.8 (m/s)^2) but those won't likely compare to the 11,000 mph they're already moving parallel with the surface just to maintain orbit. Toasty!

When Joe Kittinger jumped for Excelsior in the '50s and '60s, he was testing the feasibilty high-altitude escape systems. He succeeded, and in the process, set some very impressive and rather durable records. Stratos was a not-very-subtle ad-funded stunt show. There's real science being done but I have little doubt that it's ultimately in service to the sponsor (also Austrian).

While it is all true, I am all for such ways to spend ad and marketing funds instead of just paying celebrities. Apple has reportedly spent 1 bn for marketing of iphone and ipad. Have they made anything really cool with all this money? I know that it is a matter of a different targetted group, but most Red Bull campaigns and stunts are awesome and some even borderline useful.

You can't "base jump" out of the ISS unless you have a portable jetpack capable of decelerating you to deorbit. You need a delta-V of around 225 ft/s [cdeagle.com]. If you step outside the ISS, all that will happen is that you will continue orbit the Earth with the ISS. You would starve to death before deorbiting solely due to atmospheric friction.

Someone BASE-jumping from ISS may pull some staggering free-fall numbers

Actually, no.Since the ISS is in orbit, any object detaching from it without propulsion would stay in almost the same orbit.To fall to the ground, one would first have to use a rocket to decelerate significantly.

Where was the helmet cam? I watched the event live from their site and thought that we'd see his perspective as he fell. Is there no tech available to do that? I find that surprising with seven years in the making. Did I miss something? Now that I'm thinking of it, it would have been much better if he jumped with a couple sharks sporting lasers --wearing live helmet cams, too.

The official site now has a video that includes some of the on-body camera shots, I am sure we will see many more of them as the footage is processed. I believe he had a couple cameras mounted on the suit, so don't worry.

In 1960 we managed 102,800 feet, now we can do 128,000 feet. An improvement of 25%. That's with 50 years of progress and bleeding edge technology. How much did computers improve in the same amount of time?

Do you see now why it makes no sense to compare the evolution of information processing technology to physical technology?

It could've been that FB simply couldn't hear ground control. As an Amateur Radio operator, I was appalled at the horrible quality of the comms they were using. They couldn't hear each other half the time, and even at the best of times the transmissions were garbled beyond readability.

I think there was a point where he went to an in-suit radio (possibly before step 29), and comms went downhill fast.